Department of Justice to Immigration Court Administrators: Ignore Pereira

In June, 2018 the Supreme Court made it clear that the immigration courts were accepting putative and not bona fide NTAs.  Shortly thereafter, the Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR) says, okay, we'll stop doing this.  And then, in July, EOIR reverses course and tells the courts to accept charging documents that are legally deficient.

On June 21, 2018, the Supreme Court held: "A putative notice to appear that fails to designate the specific time or place of the noncitizen’s removal proceedings is not a 'notice to appear under section 1229(a),' and so does not trigger the stop-time rule" (p. 9).

Less than a week later, on June 27, the EOIR sent an email to court administrators stating: "Effective immediately, NTAs filed at the window that do not specify the time and place of the hearing should be rejected."

Then, on July 11, 2018, EOIR's Deputy Chief Immigration Judge Christoper Santoro, apparently at the behest of the Department of Justice, reversed this instruction, as well as the Supreme Court:

The Department has concluded that, even after Pereira, EOIR should accept Notices to Appear that do not contain the time and place of the hearing. Accordingly, effective immediately, courts should begin accepting TBD NTAs. 

The message above supersedes the guidance below. [The email then quotes the email linked above.]

An attorney told me recently that he was no longer going to appear in any immigration courts: "They're not real courts."  Monopoly money works just fine in the game of Monopoly and bogus NTAs are par for the course in fake courts.